Burnett, Carol. Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story. New York: Simon, 2013.

In the actress’s storied life, Carol Burnett studied journalism while a young woman at UCLA. She’s intelligent, and such intelligence is evident through her writing. Her books are not (I assume) as-told-to books. She pens each one herself, and has only the light touch (I assume again) of a competent but kind editor. Why this introduction?
 
One might think that because Ms. Burnett is such a gifted comedian (comedienne in the old days, the Frenchiness of which I kind of liked) that her books are filled with mirth. They are. But this book, in particular, covers the beat of pathos in all its glory.
 
In her marriage to TV producer Joe Hamilton, Carol gives birth to three daugh . . . three beautiful daughters, like their mother! The first one is Carrie, and as an adolescent she sheds her wholesome, curious persona and becomes withdrawn and sullen. She begins to do poorly in school. She is on drugs. Carol and her husband do all they can to try to help her until they see their efforts are doing no good. Then they put her in rehab. When released from treatment, everything seems all right; only it isn’t. She finds drugs again (or they find her). Back into rehab she goes. Tough love is very difficult for Ms. Burnett, but she herself is a tough cookie. It was never beneath her to invite one of her co-stars to leave her show if he was unhappy; she did it kindly but she did it tough. It was not beneath her to sue the National Enquirer for publishing the false statement that she got drunk and started an argument with statesman, Henry Kissinger. She won.
 
The second rehab does take, and Carrie begins to pursue the artist’s life (in the broadest sense, including songwriting, fiction writing, and performing). She sustains a short marriage, and when it’s over she retains the cabin they’d shared in Gunnison, Colorado. It is her haven, her place to work and BE.
 
When symptoms indicate there is something wrong with Carrie’s health, doctors discover she has lung cancer (she names the tumor Yuckie Chuckie). Ms. Burnett weaves together the poignant story between her and Carrie by way of their emails, calls, and diaries. As a bonus to her readers, Carol includes Carrie’s short story, “Sunrise in Memphis.” The book is not to be missed, if you’re a fan of either woman.

Up Next:
​TUES: A Writer's Wit | Mary Pope Osborne
WEDS: A Writer's Wit |Alexander Pope
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Arthur Conan Doyle
FRI: My Book World | Graham Norton, The Life and Loves of a He Devil

Bucknell, Katherine. Christopher Isherwood Inside Out. New York: Farrar, 2024.

In 2016, I Christopher Isherwood’s entire oeuvre. Why? I admired his work at every level: sophisticated and lyrical vocabulary; his sometimes quirky but lyrical syntax, the variety of genres he tackled, from fiction to nonfiction (history, biography), and play/screenplay writing. My reading included about 4,500 published pages of Isherwood’s journals, all edited by Bucknell. Now she has created an exquisite biography of the author.
 
Isherwood worked on the boundary of fiction and nonfiction. He kept diaries most of his adult life and drew on them for his published writing, creating narratives more vivid, more revealing, more entertaining than what he documented. He altered the truth in order to make the truth more compelling, and his subtle and mysterious reworking accounts, more than anything else, for the lasting appeal of his writing (5).
 
At first, I thought I would run into a lot of repetition, but I soon discovered that Bucknell’s scholarly work had thoroughly investigated Isherwood’s life from beginning to end—as a biographer should. From Isherwood’s point of view, for example, he only knew his father until the man was killed in WWI, when Isherwood was little more than eleven. Bucknell fills in those blanks for readers: lets us know what a sensitive man the father was and how, as long as he could, he nurtured Christopher’s artistic personality. The hole left in Isherwood’s life was one that would never be filled.
 
Christopher Isherwood was as openly gay as a man could be in his era (b. 1904). By his own accounting he went to bed with over 400 men (from Germany to the UK to the USA). He loved his sexual life. Even when he had a lover/partner, he often had trysts with other men. Yet “[h]e saw from the outset of his career that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways” (9). I believe he succeeded. Within the glory of the Gay Liberation days of the 1970s, the man was in his sixties, yet he still continued to grow, and he was admired far and wide by younger gay men (my generation) for his pioneering life and work. He was in constant demand for teaching and speaking gigs, which he labored to keep, not only for the remuneration but for the communication it afforded him with others.
 
This tome is one of the most eloquent pieces of literary biography I’ve ever read. If readers wish to learn about one of the finest twentieth-century writers working in English prose, this book is a fine place to begin. 

​Up Next:
​TUES: A Writer's Wit | Ford Madox Ford
WEDS: A Writer's Wit |Lucy Worsley
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Ronan Farrow
FRI: My Book World | Margaret Rutherford: An Autobiography as told to Gwen Robyns

Shulman, Norm. Love, Norm: Inspiration of a Jewish American Fighter Pilot. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP, 2022.
 
Psychologist Norm Shulman first meets Greg, the boy who is to become his stepson,  when the boy is twelve. The book is many things: 1) a bit of Norm’s family history, his Polish-Jewish roots, his adolescent difficulties with math (with which I heavily identify) 2) a bit of world Jewish history, that these long-beleaguered people have always been warriors and not given proper credit for their service, and 3) letters that Norm writes to Greg while Greg is in Air Force pilot training. The latter comprises the spine of the book. Something I, as a fallen Gentile, was not aware of was the prejudice Jewish people have been subjected to concerning their military history: people claiming falsely that Jews avoid the military. Shulman does a superior job of informing readers of the many Jewish heroes (warriors) who have fought under various flags.
 
David Dragunsky is a Russian Jew who, as a tank driver, takes part in some of the most decisive battles on the eastern front of WWII. According to Shulman, “The vast majority of Jewish combat deaths, 212,000 out of a total of 270,000 occurred in this theater of war. Unfortunately, Cold War politics and propaganda prevented proper credit from being given to our Russian ally and its Jewish soldiers, but history can’t be changed” (25).Another hero of Shulman’s is Greg’s maternal grandmother, Opal Keith, who “was a member of the first regiment of Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) recruited at the beginning of World War II” (39). The author continues, week after week, letter after letter, to support his son with encouragement of this kind, reinforcing the importance of Jewish military personnel when others in flight school try to belittle or sneer at Greg’s own involvement (can antisemitism still exist in this century?). Greg gets the final word in the last chapter, in which he informs the reader of his appreciation and affection for his stepfather who has helped him through a year and a half of hellish pilot training. This is a fine book combining both the academics of history and the personal nature of memoir. It is a bold testament to a people who have suffered beyond endurance in world history, as well as at the local level, and still manage to rise to the level of hero.

Up Next:​
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Laura Pedersen
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Jody Williams
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Claude Simon
FRI: My Book World | Norm Shulman, Love, Norm: Inspiration of a Jewish American Fighter Pilot

Dunne, Griffin. The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir. New York: Random, 2024.
        
There may be several big takeaways from this celebrity memoir. One, rich (celebrities) and poor (ordinary citizens) alike can suffer from alcohol and drug problems. Two, rich and poor alike may lose a family member to murder and lose, as well, the court case against the accused murderer. Three, rich or poor, family support can mean everything to an individual who’s attempting to suffer through or recover from life’s insurmountable problems. Dunne—actor, producer, director, and writer—writes with humor (usually on the sardonic side) and understanding about his alcoholic father (also in the Biz and later a best-selling novelist), a difficult but caring mother with MS; his long friendship with the late Carrie Fisher (who hails from a similar background); the murder of his beloved sister, Dominique. At the same time the author portrays his mostly solid and loving relationships with relatives close and distant (his father’s brother is married to author Joan Didion, yet the two brothers do not speak for years). All in all, an enjoyable memoir. I know I kept turning the pages.

Up Next:​
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Ken Kesey
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Anna Deavere Smith
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Tanith Lee
FRI: My Book World | Adam Moss, ​The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing

Streisand, Barbra. My Name Is Barbra. New York: Viking, 2023.

Wow! How do I begin?
 
Full disclosure: I’ve been a fan of Barbra Streisand since 1962 when I was fourteen, and, from the speaker of an AM radio, emanated this crystalline voice. It lifted me across the room like a wonderful fragrance. I thought, God, I’ve got to hear more of her. And so I did. Decades of albums later (most of which I own in one medium or another). I bought both the hardcover ($31) and the Audible version ($61) of this book, so you know I’m serious when I declare I’m a fan. Her work has always cost more than that of other artists, and I’ve always paid it. You get what you pay for, and her case it is great artistry.
 
This memoir might better be subtitled as an autobiography because it covers every minute, every inch of her life—album by album, show or concert by concert, and film by film. At first, I am a bit disconcerted, as I follow along in the hardcover, that she does not read the text word for word. Her prose is quite engaging—rich and varied. But she adds so many asides, creating more of a conversational tone in her book, that I’m grateful for the audio version, as well. It must have taken her months to make the Audible recording, and yet her voice never wavers (except by way of certain emotions); it sounds as if she recorded the 900+ pages (48+ hours) in one smooth session. This woman does nothing by half.
 
And perhaps that is the crux of Streisand’s book: She means to tell her own story her own way, after decades of being misrepresented and misquoted again and again. Myth Number One: Barbra is hard to work with. Nope. She quotes from directors, actors, and other professionals she’s collaborated with that because of her exacting nature, she is a joy to work with. Because she collects discerning individuals around her, she creates a fine synergy, by which the highest quality is sought after by all. Exceptions exist, like the late Ray Stark, producer, to whom Streisand is tied for her first five films. He is a lying, conniving person who cheats her in several ways, and she can’t wait to be free of him. In some ways (creativity mainly), her career does not begin until he’s nowhere near her career.
 
Myth Number Two: Barbra loves to perform. For the first time, I learn that every time she must appear before a live crowd to sing, the experience frightens her to death. She loves performing in the studio, making albums. She is deeply emersed when appearing in or directing a film. Yet, later in her career, she does “conquer her fears,” a line of dialog I borrow from her concert in New York’s Central Park (1967). Over time, she learns to trust her audience, to include them as a collective partner.
 
Myth Number Three: Barbra is a cold b———. You should read all the adoring notes, letters, and reviews that people write. You should hear of the friendships she develops with other actors, directors, musicians, artists, and professionals close to her. Marty, her agent (manager?), at ninety-something, is still with her. Renata, her personal assistant-housekeeper-chef-chauffeur has remained with her for over sixty years. You don’t retain that kind of loyalty by being unkind.
 
Then there is the personal. Barbra confesses (we’ve always guessed) how the loss of her father at an early age affects her entire life. She describes the rocky but loving relationship with a mother who, it turns out, is so jealous of her own daughter’s success that she often turns a cold shoulder to Barbra—even skipping an important performance in Las Vegas to play the slots with her friends. Barbra shares the details of the romances in her life (those whom she loved and those who loved her): Omar Shariff, Marlon Brando, and others not so well known. An entire chapter she devotes to her husband of twenty-five years: (hello, gorgeous) James Brolin.
 
Though she may have had an editor to help her shape the book (what published writer doesn’t?), Streisand’s prose, both conversational and formal at times, is her own. After all, the woman has written screenplay treatments, screenplays, and another book besides. (Songs!) Like everything else she does, Streisand approaches this book with love and exacting detail. If you like her at all, or if you are curious, pony up and either read or listen to the book (or both, as I did). You won’t be disappointed.
 
Oh, and as a bonus, whenever Barbra Streisand explains how a certain album is developed, she includes sound snippets from the tracks to demonstrate what she is talking about. Sublime. Sublime. Sublime. Sit in on the best master class ever!

Coming Next:
​TUES: A Writer's Wit | John Dufresne
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Laura Lippman
THURS: A Writer's Wit | S. J. Perelman
FRI: My Book World | Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach

​Highsmith, Patricia. Edith’s Diary. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1989 (1977).
 
An interesting interior novel. A middle-aged woman’s life is plagued with any number of problems, least of which is that her husband divorces her. At the same time, she keeps a diary that reflects a much happier version of her life—so much so that by the end, her behavior seems bizarre (at least to her ex-husband and others who think she should see a shrink). As a reader I never see the deterioration, however. I believe she’s merely frustrated with all that life has thrown at her.

Coming Next:
​TUES: A Writer's Wit | Karen Abbott
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Edith Wharton
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Joe Conason
FRI: My Book World | Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra

Snyder, Rachel Louise. Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir. New York: Bloomsbury, 2023.

This book comes to me as sort of a literary triptych: 1) The author’s abusive childhood 2) The author’s pursuance and achieving of a higher education, and 3) The author’s life as a result of the first two. Oh, where to begin?
 
A little girl loses her mother (having been raised in the Jewish faith), and her father (a questionable “Christian”), remarries rather soon. Little girl rebels against all: her parents, her schools, all teachings that have come before. And why not? She is subject to such great hypocritical abuse by her father: formal spankings that her father rationalizes by way of the scriptures, though adult Rachel later puts those readings into context:
 
“The actual verse is Proverbs 13:24: He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Interestingly, the more commonly cited ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ isn’t anywhere in the Bible. It comes from a mid-seventeenth century bawdy poem called ‘Hudibras’ by Samuel Butler” (71).
            
And all the spankings ever do (as with most children) is fuel her anger. Young Rachel repeatedly runs away from home. She does drugs. She begins to work at an early age because her father gives written permission (child labor being perhaps another form of abuse). The blended family of four children broadens to include two new siblings, babes Rachel adores, though her older siblings not so much. When the two parents can no longer “control” their older brood, they pack four suitcases and kick them out. Rachel is in her teens, and she drops out of high school (or actually the school drops her, expels her for her poor behavior and academic record).
 
Thus begins Rachel’s education: Sensing that she is innately intelligent. But learning that if she doesn’t finish her education, she will never have a life. This long-but-short education includes working as a booking agent for local Chicago bands (which she’s excellent at), attending Barbizon school of modeling (at the behest of her Jewish grandmother) but dropping out. Eventually, she is convinced by a friend to take the GED (General Education Development) exam, which, in spite of her academic weaknesses she passes with little effort: “If everyone knew how easy the GED was, no one would ever finish high school” (161). Then she begins to attend community college, moves on to earn her undergraduate and graduate degrees related to literature and writing. Teaches, earns a living as a freelance journalist.
 
The third part of Rachel’s triptych consists of her adulthood. She begins by booking passage for the Semester at Sea, which changes her life’s trajectory. For many years following her education, Snyder will travel the world as a journalist and writer. She will marry a British man and have a child overseas. She will return to the US, living in Washington DC, but will travel to Arizona to help care for her second mother, the second one also to die from cancer. The most poignant section of the memoir, the last third, will pull together with the first two, to finally bring to rest Rachel’s anger with her father and her stepmother, will finally make Rachel a whole person. If not a tour de force, the book is pretty damn close.

Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jane Smiley
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Grazia DeLedda
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Christopher Buckley
FRI: My Book World | F. Scott Fitzgerald, ​The Crack-Up

It Only Hurts When I Pee Hee Hee
or How to Kill an Entire Summer—Part III
July 8, 2023
10:23 a.m. The day following the surgery, during Doctor V’s morning round: I gained his permission to record on my iPhone what he was about to tell me beside at Covenant Hospital. I later transcribed our conversation for use here:

Dr. V: … type of bladder cancer, but yeah there are other types and variants, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s transitional stuff.
RJ: Okay, so you caught it early?
Dr. V: Well, yeah, I mean, the CT does not show that there’s anything outside of that, but one of the key things about bladder cancer, you know, it comes from that transitional epithelium of lining of the bladder, but there’s a muscular wall to the bladder, so one of the key aspects of pathology: Is it just in the lining or is it also growing in the muscle …?
RJ: Mm.
Dr. V: When it’s in the muscle, that’s where the blood vessels and lymphatics are, that’s how the cancer could escape out of the bladder.
RJ: Mm.
Dr. V: So the treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer as opposed to what we call superficial bladder cancer is different.
RJ: Okay.
Dr. V: Muscle-invasive actually is a much more aggressive disease stage, and the treatment ideally for a relatively healthy man like yourself, is the removal of the bladder. Which is a big operation. Whereas superficial bladder cancer you trim it off, you basically instill… The drug of choice is BCG, it’s a live, attenuated form of TB, it activates your immune system, to counteract early cancer cells within the lining of your bladder, because they tend to be recurrent. By doing that, it’s not really chemo, it’s immunotherapy for your bladder. It significantly reduces your chances of recurrence.
RJ: Mm.
Dr. V: All right, sir. Fill him full. Make sure he can pee [speaking to nurse]. See me in about two weeks is our plan.

​But I must return to the day before. I was feeling quite good actually; I never experienced any pain in my bladder. But about four hours after surgery, I began to feel extreme cramps in my bowels. I suspected, as with most surgeries I’ve had, that the anesthesia had locked my bowels. A night of hell ensued, by which I could not seem to make clear to the nurses where the pain was coming from as my stomach appeared visibly to distend. They gave me everything from tramadol to a shot of morphine when I told them my pain was a “10.” I had been hooked up to a foley—a catheter that collects one’s urine in a bag. After the doctor told me I’d be going home, they disengaged it, and the nurses did fill me with water—four glasses-worth. Problem was, my urological innards were locked up, as well—I couldn’t pee!—and they sent me home with a different foley. Two sullen nurses entered the room (their routine with their patients had been disrupted) to install it because my nurse didn’t know how, and they were trying like hell to get me out of that room by ten p.m. So I was sent home with that urine bag saddled to my side like I don’t know what. Six days later, it was finally removed at Doctor V’s office, his nurse following the correct procedure (I shall spare you the description). The only problem was that after six days of that damn foley chafing my urethra, it actually hurt to pee. In situations like this you want to blame someone, but whom? The huffy nurses who might have injured me in their haste? The doctor and hospital who insisted I go home without being able to pee? The insurance company that was only going to pay for one night for a supposedly out-patient procedure?

​In any case, starting Wednesday, August 16, 2023, I will begin BCG cancer treatments, once again, in Doctor V's office. Not the hospital! BCG stands for Bacillus Calmette Guerin, a procedure by which the doctor will directly inject (by way of that still handy urethra) a “live attenuated form of TB” into my bladder. Six Wednesdays in a row, ending on one of the last days of summer, September 20. Maybe autumn will be a better time for me, for us all. I sure hope so. We shall have earned a break from the heat.

Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Barbara Delinsky
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Mark Doty
FRI: My Book World | Jhumpa Lahiri, Whereabouts

It Only Hurts When I Pee Hee Hee
or How to Kill an Entire Summer—Part II
The eighth thing the doctor’s staff was about to do to me was to take place as they escorted me down the hall to what looked like a new piece of equipment in a room tinier than the radiology room. A beautiful young woman with dark swooping hair stood by.

“This is my daughter,” Doctor V said, “blah blah blah, she’s out at the med school.” And she smiled at me.

Now, the good doctor told me to lie back in the chair. “It’s kind of like a recliner,” he informed me, “but it isn’t really built for the patient.”

No shit.

It was fucking hard—unforgiving, like a seat pulled from an old MG Midget—and I swear I think I remember there being stirrups for my legs. Of course, my pants were pulled down, and the good doctor seated, manning his equipment as if he were a jet pilot, pulling at this lever and that knob, typing shit onto his keyboard. He wrapped a piece of pale blue paper around my wee cock so that that was all that was showing, as if my cock were a discrete sort of apparatus—something in his way, not a precious portal to my innards. Doctor V injected some deadening gel into my cock, unfortunately not deadening enough. Before I could scream or in any way protest this brutal, barbaric treatment of my member, he slid a probe in there and kept shoving it inside until . . . then he brought to my attention two computer monitors joined together in a “vee” . . . and he, oh, by the way, it felt like my wee cock had been connected to an electric socket, especially when the flow of water meant to cool things down surged all around my wee urethra. Anyway, he talked me through it, narrating as everyone in that tiny room, including the doc’s daughter, for Christ’s sake, listened:

“Here’s your prostate,” he said, pointing to the monitor. “Except for being about twice as large as it was four years ago, it looks to be in good shape.” (Is this yet another problem I’ll have to face in the years to come?)

By then I realized my hands were grasping—no gripping—the armrests, reentering the earth’s atmosphere. Sweat flying from my forehead, challenging my deodorant. Then the doc gave me a good view of my bladder. It just appeared like pink skin to me.

Then, he announced, “I don’t like this,” and he made me turn my head while my hips make their Saint-Vitus-dance my hips dance so I could view the monitor to my left. “This is not good,” he said, pointing out a whitish, lacey-looking growth. “We’ll have to shave it off.”

“Today?” I asked, alarmed that I might have to squirm through yet another procedure.

“No,” he said, looking at me funny. “No, we’ll set up a hospital appointment. You’ll be sedated.”

“Thank Christ,” I mumbled, hoping my curse hadn’t offended anyone.

All in all, I was in that office for nearly three hours. Must have been sixty of us being shuffled in and out of those wee, antiseptic rooms like Marx Brothers’ characters—peeing in cups, giving up blood, having x-rays taken, being prodded and poked—then escorted back to what nurses kept referring to as the lobby, as if we were guesting ourselves at the Waldorf-Astoria—made to sit and wait (it was a waiting room, let’s be clear) for the next round of torture.

But then, there was no more. I was told I would appear at Lubbock's Covenant Hospital on July 7, where the doctor would “shave” the tumor and have it biopsied. Yippee!

NEXT TIME: In “It Only Hurts When I Pee, Part III,” I give you Dr. V’s blow-by-blow description of what is to come.

It Only Hurts When I Pee Hee Hee
or How to Kill an Entire Summer—Part I
No, I do NOT have an STD, but ha! I hope my title got your attention. This post is about something perhaps just as menacing: cancer.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to blog about my bout with this disease. Most of my posts share quotes from others more eloquent than I, “A Writer’s Wit,” or ascribe my take on literature, “My Book World.” But if I don’t write about my cancer, it might otherwise wind up as something-swept-under-the-carpet—mentally, emotionally—something I wish to avoid. Must I share? you might wonder. Yes.

The turmoil began when I noted blood in my urine. Knowing better than to fool around with a symptom as obvious as that (never a good one), I immediately made a quick appointment with my urologist, whom I’ve consulted for over twenty years.

My appointment with Doctor V began at 9:30 a.m. on June 13, two days after my seventy-fifth birthday. I mean, I had to stop and think. Edith Wharton lived to be seventy-five. Penny Marshall lived to be seventy-five. So too, her once-upon-a-co-star, Cindy Williams. I’ve had a great life, I say, trying to bolster myself. Anyway, the doctors and his staff did at least eight things to me while I was present for my two-hour-and-forty-minute appointment.

1) They took an EKG.
2) They took and tested my urine.
3) Took and examined my blood sample.
4) & 5) Gave me an antibiotic shot in EACH buttocks.
6) & 7) The office was a sprawling building. My doctor and a second urologist maintain their own radiology lab, employ their own radiologist, who x-rayed my kidneys. (I think this is right. Things moved so quickly.) The rugged man with a gray beard but the hardbody of one who works out at Golds told me mechanically (because he must repeat the same words thousands of times a day) to lay on the table. It was a high, narrow sort of table, with a footstool to help me up. And above me loomed that X-ray machine, threatening to create solarized pictures of my organs. The radiologist entered the adjacent room, his office, to execute the x-rays (Hold your breath please|click|you may breathe).

When done, he determined all the images were viable. The radiologist disappeared into his office again. He emerged and informed me both kidneys and prostate were healthy. Yay. 

This same man then slathered cold gel over parts of my body, injected it up my rear end, and stuck a probe up there to take sonograms of my kidneys, my prostate? (Again, I know he told me, but I couldn’t seem to retain the information.) I just wanted the barrage against my body to be over. When finished, he handed me the large, gel-soaked piece of paper I’d been laying on, and pointed also to the cute stand with rolls of toilet tissue. 

     “There’s more paper over there,” he said, “if you should need it to wipe off the gel. Put all that paper stuff over there in that big red container, not in the trash can, and I’ll leave you to get dressed.” 
NEXT TIME: In “It Only Hurts When I Pee, Part II,” I share the gruesome details of another test, the one that reveals I have a bladder tumor.

Price, Reynolds. Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back. New York: Scribner, 2009.

Seems there is always something interesting to be found in a writer’s memoirs, and Price’s is no exception. This, one of three volumes his memoirs, is an account of his years of study abroad and his first years of teaching at Duke University. Yet, of course, it also includes much else along the way: the many close friendships and collegial relationships he acquires in academia; familial relationships, tangentially at least; his desire to be and early practices of becoming a novelist; his relationships with other writers and those associated with the publishing business (some natural sort of name-dropping allowed).

And finally, he does address his homosexuality (having been born in 1933, he abhors the term “gay” and justifies his disapproval). Both in the UK and US, such sexual actions are strictly illegal, so he lives primarily a lonely life, never establishing a long-term relationship, though he does come close while in England, falling in love with a European man just prior to returning to the States to teach. Their long distance love fizzles out, but they do remain friends. Price dies in 2011, just as gay marriage is being accepted as a norm. Pity. I would love to know what his thoughts about it might have been.

Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Frederick Douglass
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Alfred North Whitehead
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Maureen Johnson
FRI: My Book World | Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White

Rodgers, Mary and Jesse Green. Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers. New York: Farrar, 2022.

I’ve been a huge fan of comic Carol Burnett my entire life. I remember her belting out a song called “Shy,” when she appeared in a TV version of the play, Once Upon a Mattress. By today’s standards, it was a simple production and recorded on kinescope for us now to cherish by way of YouTube. The one highlight is Burnett as the princess singing “Shy” with some irony, her mouth open wide, her lungs full of air, no microphone needed. The thing I don’t know or realize at the time is that the music is written by the author of this book, Mary Rodgers—the younger daughter of composer Richard Rodgers.
 
Mary Rodgers’s book is co-written with Jesse Green, a lifelong friend. Rodgers at one point attempts to pen the book herself, yet always gets bogged down. But you’re a storyteller, Jesse tells her, a talker! So Mary tells her stories to Jesse, and Jesse does more than write them down. He creates a great book, handing over each draft to Mary for approval, until they arrive at what is this tome.
 
The title may not be quite so ironic when applied to Mary. Although she in many ways is bold, she is always reigned in, first of all, by her parents. Her mother, probably jealous of her daughter’s talent (this learned from Mary’s many hours on analysts’ sofas), belittles her and her work. Richard Rodgers, her famous father, is also begrudging with regard to how much time he spends with his daughter. Mary Rodgers (b. 1931) is an early feminist without the crusading. She must fight her way into every project she obtains until she reaches a certain point (probably when Mattress becomes a huge hit). Even after that, she doesn’t always get the big projects. Her fame comes more or less from writing projects for children.
 
In fact, she must love children a great deal, giving birth to six of her own (three each by two different husbands), one dying quite young. Her legacy, as she tells it, may to be a better parent than composer. She tries, in vain sometimes, to be a better mother than her own mother was. Ultimately she realizes she may not be able to have it all, as more recent feminists realize. At least not without a lot of help, women can’t have it all. (We’re talking the hiring of tutors, governesses, child caregivers, not to mention lots of domestic help—something available only to the wealthy.) At any rate, this memoir is enjoyable to read on many levels. Not always the greatest prose (transcription of an oral work seems to miss out on the finishing touches that grammar and phrasing can give it), with perhaps far too many footnotes that could have been incorporated into the main text, this memoir is still a pleasant and entertaining read.

Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Laura Lippman
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Muriel Spark
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Havelock Ellis
FRI: My Book World | George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

Krouse, Erika. Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation. New York: Flatiron, 2022.

Krouse, a fine novelist and short story writer (I became acquainted with her work in The New Yorker), turns to nonfiction in this book. She lives in Colorado where she secures a job as a private investigator for an attorney who is attempting to litigate against the town’s university (you don’t have to comb your memory for long to realize she’s talking about the University of Colorado). In her developing career—she informs her boss during her interview that she is not a PI—she learns to interview victims of sexual violence at the hands of the university’s potential recruits, contemporary football players, and coaching staff (at least by way of their complicity). It is a case that continues for six years until it is “resolved” (you’ll have to read the book to see what that means). 
 
Throughout this narrative, Krouse weaves in her own story of sexual abuse. Seems as a child, the man living with her mother, known to readers as X, begins abusing her at age four and continues for a number of years. This abuse colors all her relationships, of course, with both men and women. At a certain age, she refuses to be in the same room with X, a stance her mother does not approve. In fact, at one point, her mother “disowns” her for a fairly flimsy excuse concerning Krouse’s wedding details. Oh, and into the narrative is also woven her relationship with a sensitive guy, who turns out to be the man she marries. Krouse must learn to live without her biological family (her brother the only one who deigns to speak to her, usually on the down low), and so she forms a new one with her husband and a number of other close friends.
 
The case? The university sustains huge losses because of the scandal, and many people at the top are let go, very gingerly, because the university doesn’t need any more litigation or loss of income. For example, the head football coach is fired, but the university must pay out his contract for several million. Erika Krouse continues to work for the attorney, but the cases seem like light-lifting compared to the sexual assault case. She enjoys having acquired the skills she has learned: research, interviewing, counseling (insomuch as she can) to win over informants and witnesses. A very fine book about a horrible subject, one our society has yet to deal with in a uniform fashion. Women and girls deserve NOT to be assaulted in any manner by any male. Period.

Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Vicki Baum
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Somerset Maugham
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Mary Mapes Dodge
FRI: My Book World | Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers

Tan, Amy. The Opposite of Fate. London: HarperCollins, 2003.

The Opposite of Fate is a joy to read, I would venture, whether you’re a Tan fan or not. The celebrated author modestly shares her wisdom with readers. Wisdom derived from her childhood, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Wisdom derived from a life marred with tragedy (family deaths, physical violence, and murder of a friend). Wisdom derived from her relationships, family and friends alike. Wisdom derived from her courage to try new things (from joining a rock band made up of other famous writers to escaping from a dangerous flood while camping near Lake Tahoe to traveling to China with her mother). Wisdom derived from her trial-and-error career in writing (as most writing careers may be). Wisdom about medicine as she suffers through a long (and undiagnosed) bout of Lyme disease. The book is composed of essays arranged in thematic sections, and some anecdotes or fragments tinkle like little bells of remembrance from one essay to the next, but you don’t mind the repetition because it demonstrates how interrelated all the parts of her singular life are. I wish I’d read it when it was published, but it is still a valuable document in understanding one of our most important American authors. 
Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Rose Tremain
WEDS: AWW | Steven Millhauser
THURS: AWW | Helen Thomas
FRI: My Book World | Reynolds Price's The Promise of Rest

​Summerfield, Ellen, Ed. Bite-sized Poems: An Anthology. Oregon: Independently Published, 2021.

This carefully curated and edited volume of poetry might be the beginning classroom teacher’s dream for teaching poetry. Summerfield, herself a poet, brings together over forty indeed brief poems (one as short as nine words but packed with meaning). Not only does she guide readers lovingly through each poem with thoughtful exegesis but she also provides at the end of each presentation references to YouTube and PBS readings of the poem or a poet’s website so that the curious persons might read on. However, not to limit the book’s appeal to an educational setting alone, it stands alone as one poet’s generous interpretation of a group of disparate but equally enchanting poems—each one a delicious chocolate lifted from the front cover of bite-sized delights: Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Bertolt Brecht, as well as Edna Kovacs and Gwendolyn Brooks, make up just a few of the poets whom she anthologizes.

​Coming Next:
TUES: AWW | Aldous Huxley
WEDS: AWW | Elizabeth Hardwick
THURS: AWW | Malcolm Lowry
FRI: My Book World | Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate

It irritates my partner Ken, when I’m sometimes told I look good (or young) for my age. I make this statement not as a matter of ego or vanity (well, not entirely) but as a point of departure for a vapid little tale of humor, irony, and maybe stupidity. It’s one that began long ago.

We arrive at Star ER on the South Loop at about four p.m., and the waiting room is empty. In attempting to fill out the remarkably simple paperwork, my head drips blood onto the floor. The receptionist says not to worry; they’ll clean it up. I’m holding back the blood with a single folded tissue brought from home; it is full, a plump crimson rose. Soon I’m called back to an examining room. The man waiting on me is a middle-aged, jocular doctor with multi-striped frames and tinted lenses. He injects Lidocaine (a cousin to Novocain) into a wide swath of my forehead, some of its coolness dribbling down my face. He now cleans the wound with a stinging antiseptic that would otherwise be making me scream and proceeds to make nine surgical stitches to mend that laceration along my right eyebrow (a friend jokes that I should take a Sharpie and do my left brow so that they match, ha ha). When the doctor is done, a woman disinfects the remaining abrasions on my hands, arms, knees, and legs. The place runs a CT scan on my head, and we wait. The doctor returns and informs me there is a small bleed in my brain, and he orders an ambulance to fetch me and rush me across town to University Medical Center. But not serious enough to elicit sirens. The driver takes the Loop to Marsha Sharp Freeway, shortening the drive to seven minutes or less.

When I arrive at UMC, it is six p.m., and I’m rolled on a gurney into Trauma Unit #1. It seems as if twenty people leap upon my body at once (and in other circumstances such a situation might be rather tantalizing), but more probably the best-looking group of men and women I’ve ever seen, some medical students, some young doctors, begin to work away at me in a joint but chaotic effort. Some hands untie my shoes and remove my polka dot socks (I’m not picky about what I wear during my backyard strolls). Other hands in this kind of assault pull off my running shorts and athletic supporter (oh, really, doctor), my shirt. Next, a handsome man (even masked) in blue scrubs, a Doctor Vincent, badgers me with questions: First, my family history of diseases, and I tell him. Do I drink? Yes, socially. Socially like every day or just Saturdays? None of your business.

​And then he asks me how my accident happened. Some chatty youngsters stab holes in my left arm for IV’s (at least one of them a mistake because she happens to confess), and one hole in my right arm, I suppose for a different drip yet to come. I’m turned on my left side (“One, two, three, turn), and another set of hands pounds each vertebrae, and I am to yell (to be heard above the cacophony) “No” if it doesn’t hurt with each attack. None does. I’m asked to squeeze my butt cheeks (incidentally, one of my Pilates exercises—20 squeezes per set—designed to help keep my buttocks high and perky, meh). Good job, a male voice says not entirely with sincerity. All of these things are done to me as if I'm a plastic dummy, a doll on which to practice their pin-pricking and other medical stuff—as if I am not real.

I’m turned on my right side (“One, two, three, turn) for yet another purpose. Then I’m laid flat (without getting laid) on my back again. All of these actions take place on a thin, flat board slipped between my back and the gurney. Asked if I hurt, I must amaze all concerned, instead of complaining about the mess on my head, by informing them I have four titanium screws in my spine from a previous surgery—and that that board is fucking killing me. They plaster a pain-relieving pad across my lower back, which will remain there during my entire stay, thus relieving some of the pain caused by lying in hospital beds. Because I may be cognitively challenged after the fall, I’m bombarded with even more questions that I must answer satisfactorily, because suddenly the room empties as if my ass just isn’t up to snuff for this crowd (recall, if you will, my veiled rape metaphor).

I am now moved to an Intensive Care Unit room with only a curtain to separate me from the tumult, and an Asian woman with an ESL accent takes a long history and types it into the computer. Several times she, also a student, is helped by the youngish man who heads the main desk—his being the only bitchy personality I encounter during the weekend. Until midnight, when I am moved to a regular room, I languish on this uncomfortable bed with nothing but my thoughts. Ever since I was at Star ER I’ve run through my meditation mantras, attempting to take my mind off the obvious: injury and trauma. The mantras help a little, but they are shouted down by competing thoughts of pain, thoughts about my ruined looks, thoughts of how long I’ll be spending in this life-saving but God awful place.

Finally, at midnight, after several false starts (I easily eavesdrop on the main desk phone calls), I’m moved to a regular single room, GT-392. I ask the orderly rolling me along the hallways what GT stands for because my inquiring mind (as dinged-up as it is) wants to know. He mumbles something about it just being named that way. Yet he forgets that I can read the overhead signs as we travel through this labyrinthine building, and I note “Gerontology and Trauma” printed in large letters as we near my room. Ah haaa. Yet my placement is a blessing. Gone is the puerile chatter of ICU workers. Gone is the bustle of gurneys in and out of slamming doors. Agonizing moans and screams not my own. My GT room is quiet, and for the next thirty-six hours, I am allowed to sleep except for short interruptions to take my vitals, draw yet more blood, and whatever else the staff wish to do to me or for me (I'm served several good meals). Except for a couple of plump, gray-haired female nurses, everyone else, male or female, who enters the room, seems young. But even they are plump, out of breath if they exert themselves in any way. Serving twelve-hour shifts, it seems, these faithful servants obviously have no time to work out, to keep fit. The only rather thin, short man in blue scrubs happens to be a physician from the neurology department, who deems that I shall be released later Monday morning. Everyone who has entered my room—from orderlies, to aides, to nurses and doctors—seems to take seriously the hospital motto, “Service Is Our Passion.” So unlike the private hospital a mile and a half from here, or like hospitals from my past, in which I felt lucky to get the time of day or a response to my request radioed to the nurse’s station by that walkie talkie lying next to my head. 

Late Monday morning, a cute young blonde nurse named Kristina rushes around to help me prepare to check out. I ask if I can shower my smelly body, and she accommodates me by getting the trickle of warm water started in the walk-in shower (no scalding allowed here). She leaves to get my paperwork in order. It’s faster and cheaper to buy my new RXs from the UMC pharmacy, so Kristina also dispatches an aide downstairs to secure them for me: I happen to have cash to facilitate matters. After my shower, Kristina and I get my belongings together. I sign a bunch of paperwork, copies of it go in an already existing folder, and I am wheeled downstairs by the same aide to the front entrance, where Ken is waiting to pick me up.

Ackerley, Joe Randolph. My Dog Tulip. With an introduction by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. New York: NYRB, 1999 (1965).

A man in his sixties when he writes this book, Ackerley tells the story of his beloved Alsatian or German Shepherd, Tulip. I began the book thinking Tulip’s story would be broader in context, but I was wrong. A large middle section involves Ackerley’s attempts to mate Tulip properly with another Alsatian. In minute detail, and in a way that only the British can do, he writes delicately about an indelicate subject: Tulip’s female parts and how they operate every time she is on heat (a term he deems crude but still uses). A swelling this, and dripping that. But overall, the book is an unsentimental portrait of what according to Ackerley is an extraordinary Alsatian bitch whom he loves very much.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Nancy Turner's These Is My Words

Hesse, Hermann. Rosshalde. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: Bantam, 1956 (1914).

Spoiler: This novel is primarily about the death of a young child, a son named Pierre. But it is also about the death of a family, how a husband and wife drift apart and divide their love between two sons, the elder “belonging” to the wife and Pierre belonging to his father. But there isn’t much belongingness for any of the family members. The book overall is about the end of their life together at the estate called Rosshalde, an expansive property, a mansion, that seems to have a life of its own. An enchanting but sad read.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's My Dog Tulip

Wouk, Herman. Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-year-Old Author. New York: Simon, 2016.

The most fascinating aspect of this book may be indeed be Wouk’s age (b. May 27, 1915 and d. May 17, 2019, making him 10 days short of 104). One of the keys to his longevity may be that he never stops writing. In this slim tome, he relates the stories of each one of his books and how they come to be, but along with each one, he also shares where he is at the time. For example, while working on one novel for seven years, he and his wife buy a house in the Caribbean and reside there with their sons in paradise until he is finished. The book is a great way to become acquainted with his oeuvre if one isn’t already.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | *Anthony Quinn's Novel, Freya
(*British author, not the late American actor)

Athill, Diana. Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir. New York: Norton, 2009.

Diana Athill lived to be 101. She published this book at age ninety, ninety-one. An editor for a long time, she writes here and writes convincingly of her life, not only her old age but her younger life as well: her loves and losses, her miscarriage near menopause, her decision very early on that she doesn’t much care for children (though she mourns the child she loses, demonstrating a complexity of her own character). Somewhere towards the end of this thin tome, Athill states,

Athill’s longevity may, in part, be due to an active life, one in which she continues to learn how to do new things—not well or professionally, perhaps—but something novel nonetheless. One among many lessons we all might learn from her as we all slouch toward that same ending.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Michael Shumacher's  Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life

Sedgwick, John. From the River to the Sea: The Untold Story of the Railroad War That Made the West.  New York: Avid, 2021.

If you’ve ever driven on an Interstate highway in the western United States—at posted speeds of 80 mph or faster, and people do zoom faster—it can seem as if you’re passing through a Disneyland sort of panorama. Mountains. Red arches. The occasional evergreen—with your AC cranked down low. In John Sedgwick’s book, however, one learns what it was like to traverse that terrain as a railroad builder, including the workers themselves.

Sedgwick traces the lives and work of two men—Strong erecting the Santa Fe and Palmer, the Rio Grande—who make “river to the sea” travel possible beginning in the late 1880s. This journey includes side trips by way of chapters devoted, for example, to the beloved Harvey House hotels, the first chain of its kind to provide bed, beverage, and breakfast along the way. Always, however, Sedgwick returns to the struggle these two men mount against the elements, terrain, and government (state and federal) but mostly against each other, to open up the West to the established civilization in the East. It is quite a ride, and Sedgwick ensures that you do not miss a minute of it.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Diana Athill's  Somewhere Towards the End

Fischer, Jenna. The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide. With a foreword by Steve Carell. Dallas: BenBella, 2017.

I’m not an actor, but I imitated one in my youth, playing a duke in third grade, singing in a high school production of Damn Yankees, and marching down the aisle in college as part of the forest ranger chorus in Little Mary Sunshine. I loved Fischer's book because during the time it took me to read it, I realized I probably didn’t have what it would have taken to become an actor. At the same time, if I had attempted such a thing, I would so have used a book like this one as a guide.

Fischer addresses all the nuts and bolts of starting out: getting head shots done (professional ones, not phone pics), building a resumé, auditioning, even the machinations of how things work on a television or film set. Most of all, Fischer lets readers in on a little secret. Although the money can be great, the real joy of an actor’s life is ACTING. Becoming a person other than yourself. Developing a feel for all of humanity by taking on various roles. I would add that acting may be the most difficult of all the fine arts: memorizing lines (sometimes in a very short timeframe), bringing those lines to life in conjunction with a script and the ensemble, becoming (insofar as possible) that other person, taking direction, leaving your ego at the door, learning ancillary skills like singing, dancing, or fencing. If you wouldn’t do it for free (and millions of actors do), then you probably wouldn’t do it well in order to make a living.

Fisher doesn’t rely on her experiences alone; she peppers the pages with sidebars of advice from other actors: “I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera—both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving” (52).—Kevin Kline. And in the last section of the book, Fischer cites her interviews with four working actors, and they give, at length, their take on the profession by way of sharing with readers many more good tips. A must-read for aspiring actors and people who love Jenna Fischer (and I do) alike!

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Amor Towles's  The Lincoln Highway: a Novel

Baldwin, Alec. Nevertheless: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins, 2017.

In some ways this is an ordinary celebrity book. Baldwin writes about his acting career, his divorce from a famous actor, his new wife and family, and all his children. But Alec Baldwin also distinguishes himself by sharing how he comes to be an actor. In his preface he tells of his childhood, of wanting to be something one day and something else the next day. Acting allows him to become, in a sense, all of these things through the roles he plays. He also shares with readers about how his childhood of near destitution (his mother and five siblings living on their father’s teaching salary). Most interesting, however, is his quest to find himself, to be true to his desire to balance himself on that fine tightrope of acting for its own sake (the stage, the Broadway stage) and film (its commercial and sometimes lucrative nature). He glosses long lists of books he loves, plays and films he loves, actors (male and female) whom he loves and why. He peppers his writing with pieces of classical music he admires—a sign of a truly educated person.

Baldwin's is a rich life of pursuing happiness and sometimes coming up short but also getting up off the floor and trying again, whether to connect with a new woman or say yes to a new play or tackle the fields of philanthropy or politics. The man is that bright and that secure that he can make these choices and live with them. Because, in his youth, he is soooo good looking (the only reason I watched TV’s Knot’s Landing), he is sometimes approached or accosted by gay men who believe they might get lucky. To Baldwin’s credit, he is secure enough in his personhood, his masculinity, that he (by his own recognizance anyway) takes these incidents in stride (informing one man, an older mentor, however, that if he ever kisses him full on the mouth again, he will break every bone in his body—yet they do remain friends). He even goes as far as to say he “loves” a certain man he’s worked with and who knows? “he might be gay.” We know he isn’t, but it’s sweet of him to be so empathic that he might give it some consideration. That seems to be what his whole life is about: giving a role consideration before dispensing with it or forging ahead. We all should be so considerate in our own roles.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World |  Will Brandon's The Wolf Hunt: A Tale of the Texas Badlands. A Derrick Miles Mystery

Monette, Paul. Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise. New York: Harcourt, 1994.

Dear Paul, 
I’m pretending that you gaze over my shoulder and peruse this piece about you and Last Watch of the Night. On pages 267-8, you discuss your hoarding of books, and I’m so glad to learn that I’m not the only one who does this. In recataloging my library of 1,300 books, a year ago, I realize that 300 of them remain unread, and, until now [during COVID, I am endeavoring to catch up, now having read fifty-six], yours has been one of them. I feel disgusted that I didn’t read it when it came out, but that was the first year of teaching AP English in high school, and my reading tasks were to stay at least one chapter ahead of my five classes of bright bulbs. So now to why I love this book and why it will never be dated.
 
Your essays, at times, seem long and meandering, but readers, make no mistake, they are ordered; they have organization. I believe it is a nonlinear order in which, for example, in an essay about travel, you mention sojourning with all three of your long-term relationships: Roger, Stevie, and Winston. What I like about this sort of organization is it allows the essayist to discuss bigger pictures, larger topics. In the first essay entitled, “Puck,” ostensibly about yours and Roger’s Rhodesian ridgeback-Lab mix, the piece spans out, in which this “noble beast” (28) is the glue holding you two lovers together until Roger succumbs to AIDS. 
 
In another essay, “Gert,” you bring to light your first relationship with a lesbian, in this case, Gertrude Macy, a “maiden great-aunt” of one of your pupils. After she reads your novel manuscript, Gert asks, “Does it have to be so gay?” You answer:

​A fallen Catholic yourself, in fact a defiant ex-Catholic, you discuss your relationship with several different “priests.” You cover gravesites and “The Politics of Silence.” “A One-Way Fare,” your paean to travel, becomes a metaphor for the one-way trip we all make through life. I love how you move from Mont-Saint-Michel to Noel Coward’s Private Lives, to a ten-line excerpt from that play, and on to Greece, all within a page—yet all connected.
            
Young gays need to read you, just as we read Forster and Isherwood, our forebears, so that they may know from whence they come. They must realize that the fight for freedom and equality is never over. It just shifts from one opponent to another. You fought to bring AIDS into a national focus, and perhaps the young will see that the COVID-19 battle is much the same: unless we change our national leadership COVID will be with us forever, just like AIDS is still with us. One must thank you for your fight, which ended all too soon. You would just now be enjoying a long-deserved homage at the ripe age of seventy-five.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Byron Lane's Novel A Star Is Bored

Lardner, Kate. Shut Up He Explained: The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid. New York: Ballantine, 2004.
​
About halfway through this book, I realized I had read it before—not because I recognized the material but because I found little thumbnail indentions indicating where I’d stopped a reading session. My first “review,” sketched in 2004, was rather short and not very positive: Poor writing and poor editing. What could have been enlightening and touching was scattered and uninteresting. Lardner keeps an emotional distance throughout that is not very pleasant.
 
In a way, I still feel the same. The writing is fine enough; it just lacks a certain depth. Perhaps that is the point where a better editor might have helped the author. Much of the book is really about Kate Lardner’s father, Ring Lardner, Jr., a distinguished screenwriter who is blacklisted in the 1950s because he refuses to answer the question at a hearing whether he is or ever has been a communist. He spends twelve months in prison simply for attempting to practice his First (or Fifth) Amendment right to speak (or not). And, of course, such an event does have harmful effects on a burgeoning family: A wife, herself a working actor, who ceases to be offered film roles because she is related to Ring; a daughter and two sons who need him to balance out an impatient mother who, though loving, is also bound and determined to have her own career.

What is most troubling, I think, is the pacing. Of ten chapters, “The Penal Interlude,” is the longest at 120 pages. Conclusions that the author could draw about the effects on her as a “blacklisted kid” are missing or shortchanged. At the end of the book, Lardner gives a hurried account of her college years, her stumbling around to find out what she wishes to do with her life, thumbnail sketches of her two marriages, and boom, we’re done. Either the book should focus more on her father, or she should have a book longer than 272 pages, in order to discuss how being a blacklisted kid has affected her entire life (she’s about sixty at the time she writes the book). This time around I don’t notice the “emotional distance” as much as I do in 2004, but there exists rather a flippant tone that seems to reduce the import of what she is saying about one of the most destructive periods in US political history and its ramifications for her family. Perhaps it’s her way of dealing.

NEXT FRIDAY: My Book World | Paul Monette's Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise.